THE BOOK
PEOPLE LIKE STARS BY PATRICE LAWRENCE
Three 13-year-old strangers — Ayrton, Stanley, and Sen — are bound by one big secret. Ayrton was stolen as a baby — although safely returned, his mum won’t let him out of sight. Stanley – and his twin, Oliver’s – grandmother is a forbidden mystery. Sen finally has a home, but one wrong move could put her back on the streets. What happens when their paths cross…?
For ages 9+
PATRICE LAWRENCE
Patrice Lawrence was born in Brighton and brought up in an Italian-Trinidadian household in Sussex. Her first novel ORANGEBOY was one of the most talked-about YA books of 2016 and won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Fiction and the Bookseller YA Book Prize that year. Ever since, her work has consistently featured on prestigious prize lists and EIGHT PIECES OF SILVA recently won the Crime Fest Award for Best Crime Novel for Young Adults and the Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour. Patrice has been awarded the MBE for services to literature in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Photography © Marc Sethi
The judges said: Compelling, courageous and full of heart, People Like Stars is a modern mystery that grips from the first line. Ambitious in scope yet exquisitely controlled, it’s storytelling at its most humane and powerful.
2025 Children’s Fiction judges
